Volume 1, Issue 4
September 28, 2006
Visualization and Analytics Center Paints Picture of Potential Threats
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists are developing mobile analytics research that would help emergency first responders make sense of complex and conflicting information generated during disasters. The research is being done through the Department of Homeland Security's National Visualization and Analytics Center, which is operated by PNNL.
Rising homeland security threats, increasingly sophisticated adversaries and growth of the Internet and computer technologies have heightened the need for tools that can identify, predict and help prevent terrorist attacks.
Through the National Visualization and Analytics Center (NVAC), scientists and researchers have developed capabilities that address those very problems. The Department of Homeland Security established NVAC at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in 2004. NVAC employs an expert staff and houses several computer-aided visual analytics technologies and tools aimed at interpreting and depicting massive sets of data collected from a variety of sources, including documents, images, numbers, video and audio.
Prior to NVAC, analysts were bombarded with enormous volumes of data coming from these sources and often times, the information was incomplete, fuzzy or simply out of context. Current NVAC-developed tools have the ability to:
- Synthesize information and derive insight from massive, dynamic, ambiguous, and often conflicting data
- Reveal themes or patterns
- Provide timely, defensible and understandable assessments, and
- Communicate assessment effectively for action.
Visual analytics are valuable because of the ability to detect the expected, and discover the unexpected. – Jim Thomas, PNNL chief scientist and NVAC director.
"Visual analytics are valuable because of the ability to detect the expected, and discover the unexpected," said Jim Thomas, PNNL chief scientist and NVAC director. Visual analytics combines the art of human intuition and the science of mathematical deduction to perceive patterns and derive knowledge and insight from them.
NVAC has taken visual analytics to new dimensions by identifying opportunities of applying these techniques to not only laboratories, government agencies and universities, but also to industries such as healthcare, telecommunications, marketing and education. The NVAC team established a series of Regional Visualization and Analytics Centers (RVACs) at key U.S. universities. In 2005, Stanford was selected to be the first RVAC, which will provide research expertise, training and education programs supplementing the knowledge centered within NVAC. The University of Washington, Purdue, Penn State, University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the Georgia Institute of Technology also house RVACs.
The role of industry is extremely important in NVAC's ability to leverage those resources and ensure transfer of new technologies to users. The Visualization and Analytics Centers (VAC) Consortium was established to provide a forum for industry leaders and government specialists to collaborate in developing and deploying advanced technologies. Through several yearly meetings, the VAC will gain unique and valuable insight for potential applications and advancements of NVAC.
The fall 2006 VAC will be held October 4-5 at PNNL. If you would like more information on the consortium go to http://nvac.pnl.gov/meeting_fall06/.